Polystyrene colloidal template was prepared by evaporation deposition method with as-prepared polystyrene microspheres with the size of 340±10nm as raw material and inverse opal zirconia was fabricated by colloidal crystal-templating method. The optimal process of preparation of polystyrene colloidal template and inverse opal zirconia were deeply studied via orthogonal experiment design and range date processing. The factors, which affect the morphology of polystyrene template and inverse opal zirconia, and the corresponding values were considered, respectively and the primary and secondary order of factors were also determined. The results showed that the optimal process of preparation of polystyrene colloidal template was that self-assembly temperature was 55 oC, emulsion height was 1.5 cm, emulsion consistence kept 4.0% and container diameter was Φ6.0 cm. It also found that the as-prepared polystyrene template showed bright green color and the better polystyrene template structure was, the brighter green color can be obtained. The optimal process of preparation of inverse opal zirconia was that impregnation time was once, mass ratio of polystyrene template and precursor kept 1 : 15, precursor ratio of zirconium acetate and methanol kept 1 : 1 and calcination temperature was 450 oC.

Keywords: Polystyrene, Inverse opal, Zirconia, Structure color, Optimal process